Walking along the waterfront in Melbourne’s Docklands I was curious to find out a sculpture of a cow being stuck up a tree… At first sight it was surreal and absurd to me. Some metres above the water line among urban environment sites, there is a 8 metres high - four ton bronze sculpture, representing an upside down cow in the branches of an Australian gum tree.
As ART is never really about... what it's about, I researched and discovered that this iconic sculpture created by artist John Kelly in 1999 is based on reality. It is a result of the conjunction of two Australian histories. Kelly referred to Dobell’s camouflage cows used to deceive enemy pilots during the Second World War, and at the same time he represented the effects of Australian floods such as objects stranded in trees. Is it non-reality masquerading as reality ??
